Aboitiz sees technology speeding up energy transition

By Alena Mae S. Flores – October 3, 2023, 9:10 pm
from manilastandard.net

Aboitiz Power Corp. on Tuesday underscored the role of technology to hasten the country’s energy transition plan, an executive said Monday.

“The realistic pace to do transition is underscored by the available technology that allows you to do it in a reliable and affordable way. Given what is available today, we believe what is realistic is a practical and gradual approach that will allow for technology development,” Aboitiz Power chief finance officer Liza Montelibano said in a statement.

“If we really want to hasten the transition, a lot of the support has to go into [the] development of technology. Once it’s economically viable, I think the rest will fall into place,” she said.

Aboitiz Power chief finance officer Liza Montelibano

Montelibano said there is a need to balance energy transition to greener technologies with the aspiration for reliable and affordable electricity.

“Balancing the energy trilemma of reliability, affordability, and sustainability is very complex. You need secure and reliable [electricity] to power human progress and you need affordable power for social stability and development,” the executive said.

She said these considerations become more significant as electricity demand is projected to increase by 6.6 percent annually until 2040, requiring the doubling of supply in 11 years to help support the growth and development of industries, cities and rural communities.

“With that kind of situation, we need all forms of energy to be able to support [the] requirement,” Montelibano said.

Montelibano said the influx of intermittent sources like solar and wind should ideally be complemented by an affordable solution as well as viable low carbon baseload technologies.

Montelibano said that absent any breakthroughs in these areas, liquified natural gas (LNG) would be a transition fuel in the near term to gradually displace coal and complement the variability of renewables.

“What you seem to be seeing now is the international community adding pressure, just really pulling out of fossil fuel projects…You already have a lot of financial institutions that don’t support thermal facilities,” Montelibano said.

“But the existing capacities play the role of buying time to keep the grid stable, so that renewable and low-carbon technologies can develop,” she said.

The Philippines wants to increase the share of renewable energy in its power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040, with the remainder being allocated to thermal power plants, most of which compose baseload capacity.

Montelibano said the power grid should also be upgraded to accept more variable renewable energy without compromising the stability of the whole power system.

“The next goal for Aboitiz Power is to [further expand] its megawatts and to shift its portfolio mix to 50:50 [thermal and renewables] by end-decade, very much aligned to what the energy trilemma is trying to address in terms of security, equity, and sustainability,” Montelibano said.

Aboitiz Power’s 10-year growth strategy involves bringing its RE assets to 4,600 MW by 2030.

It has over 1,000 MW of disclosed projects from various indigenous energy sources and is constantly pursuing opportunities to grow its portfolio for solar, hydro, geothermal, wind, and energy storage systems.